MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This week, we're reflecting on 10 years since the nation learned Michael Brown's name.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #1: (Shouting) What do we want?
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Justice.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #1: (Shouting) When do we want it?
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Now.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #1: (Shouting) For who?
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Mike Brown.
MARTIN: Brown, an 18-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by an officer on the police department in Ferguson, Miss, igniting protests - sometimes violent - that went on for more than a year.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #2: (Shouting) Hands up.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Don't shoot.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #2: (Shouting) Hands up.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Don't shoot.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #2: (Shouting) What's his name?
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Mike Brown.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #2: (Shouting) What's his name?
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Mike Brown.
MARTIN: Troy Doyle remembers those protests. He's currently serving as the police chief in Ferguson, but in 2014, he was a lieutenant colonel with the St. Louis County Police Department.
TROY DOYLE: I was a bit stunned and outdone about what I was seeing.
MARTIN: But while Doyle says he was shocked by the intensity of the protests, he was familiar with what he saw as the issues behind them.
DOYLE: I think that what people who didn't live here in St. Louis at the time didn't understand - there was always an underlying current that was going on, especially with African Americans that lived in St. Louis city or St. Louis County. When you visit St. Louis County, you had to make sure that your tail lights worked, your headlights worked, your plates were registered correctly, you didn't speed because you were going to be a target. I just remember friends telling me that, you know, when they had to go visit someone else in certain cities, they would literally have to go all the way around town just to avoid certain areas because they were being afraid of being pulled over, so...
MARTIN: Was Ferguson one of those areas?
DOYLE: Ferguson was one of those areas.
MARTIN: Doyle was with the St. Louis County Police Department for 31 years. He says his own encounters with the police as a teenager are what pushed him to become one of them.
DOYLE: I grew up in North County, and believe it or not, I was one of those young African American teenagers that were stopped, harassed by law enforcement quite frequently. It got to the point, for me, that I got pulled over so many times that - I was working for a restaurant, and what I told myself was that when I get my next paycheck, I was going to go out and purchase a radar detector, and the thought behind it was that if I purchased this radar detector, it would serve as an early warning signal, so whenever law enforcement was around, I can go the opposite way. I did that.
Believe it or not, I was sitting on a parking lot to cash a paycheck. I had a police department pull up behind me while I was parked. The gentleman asked me for my driver's license and identification, which I provided. He walked back to his car, did whatever he had to do. A short time thereafter, he walked back up to my vehicle, and he says, hey, where did you get that radar detector from? I said, well, I just bought it from a store called Service Merchandise, and he says, do you have a receipt for it? And obviously, you know, I'm 16 years old. I didn't keep a receipt, and I said, no, I didn't have a receipt, so he says, well, let me see it, so I handed him the radar detector.
I'm assuming, me being in law enforcement now, he ran the serial numbers on it to see if it was stolen. Obviously, it wasn't stolen. He walked back to my vehicle, and he said that, hey, I just want to let you know this radar detector is mines. It's stolen. I denied it, of course. He took my radar detector and left. It was at that point I decided that I need to be part of the solution.
MARTIN: Doyle took over the Ferguson Police Department last year, and since then, he's made his mark.
DOYLE: We only have, roughly, maybe four officers here remaining since the 2014 uprising, which essentially makes Ferguson a brand-new police department. So when I got here, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to change the look of, you know, the uniforms, the badges or whatnot, because even the old uniforms trigger some people.
MARTIN: Two years after Michael Brown's death, the city entered into an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department - a consent decree to make changes. That work is still underway, Doyle says, and still putting pressure on police departments in the region.
DOYLE: I think it scared them because I think that Ferguson just happened to be the department that just happened to get hit with it. I think a number of agencies at that time could have been hit with this consent decree.
MARTIN: A lot of people in the community heard that Michael Brown was shot to death because he was walking in the street - OK? - and that this was unprovoked - that he had his hands up and that he was shot in the back, OK? The federal investigation didn't support that version at all. Do people believe that?
DOYLE: I think that the majority of the people in the African American community - I don't think that they believe the final outcome from the DOJ, and to this day, I think that people obviously still harbor those feelings, as...
MARTIN: That it was not justified.
DOYLE: Yes.
MARTIN: The DOJ investigation found that many of the department's practices were unconstitutional, racially biased, but - equally important - driven by the need to generate revenue for the city.
DOYLE: During that time, a lot of municipalities relied on, you know, ticket or traffic enforcement or fines. I don't think Ferguson was the only one that was doing that in the region. It just so happened they happened to be the department that got caught.
MARTIN: So what's different now?
DOYLE: I think a lot of things are different.
MARTIN: Other than that you're sitting in the chair, what's different now?
DOYLE: I think a lot has changed since 2014. We also have to remember, during that time, Ferguson Police Department was roughly about a 60-person police department, and during that time, they had, roughly, maybe three African American police officers. As we sit here in 2024, we have right at, or a little bit above, 50% African American representation. We have approximately about 23% female representation here on the police department. Since then, our officers have been through implicit bias training, deescalation training, use-of-force training. We're slowly coming into compliance with the consent decree.
MARTIN: Do you feel that the community feels the change?
DOYLE: I do think that they see that there's a change that's taking place within the police department. But there are going to be people who - as someone recently said, well, you guys made a lot of cosmetic changes, but that doesn't mean that the quality of policing changed. And I tend to disagree with them.
MARTIN: Do you think the community is still safe?
DOYLE: Oh, I think we have our challenges. Now, again, just not here in Ferguson - just in the region, we have our challenges in regards to crime.
MARTIN: What I guess I'm hearing here and what I think a lot of people are struggling with is getting the right balance. So on the one hand, you used to have public safety being used to sort of harass people. On the other hand, now you have a situation where people feel that they're less protected, and I just wonder, how do you get that balance right?
DOYLE: So one of the things that I emphasized to my officers when I came here is that we're going to be the police, meaning that we're going to do our best to minimize the crime that takes place in our city, but we're going to do it in a fair and equitable manner - meaning that we can go out and be proactive in our community in regards to stopping crime, but that doesn't have to result to violating their rights in any way. And it's tough. That is tough.
MARTIN: I am so curious about how you have managed to maintain your own optimism about this over the years. Policing has been done all kinds of ways in this country, and every Black officer I've ever met has had a story, and I'm just curious, like, how you've maintained your own hope and faith that it can be different.
DOYLE: I think that had I been in the status of a - just say just a regular police officer, I don't know if I would have the same optimism, but when you're in the position I am, as a chief of police, I am the final decision here at this police department, so that's where my optimism comes from.
MARTIN: Because?
DOYLE: Because I can set the tone and the practices of what takes place here at this police department.
MARTIN: That's Troy Doyle, chief of the police department in Ferguson, Mo.
(SOUNDBITE OF AGNES OBEL'S "PARLIAMENT OF OWLS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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